Film: Reflections Unheard: Black Women In Civil Rights

15 February

How Black women mobilised to fight sexism, class issues and political marginalisation

Where do Black women activists fit into the epochal struggles for equality and liberation during the 1960s and 70s? This feature-length documentary unearths the story of black women’s political marginalisation—between the male-dominated Black Power movement and second wave feminism, which was largely white and middle class—showing how each failed to recognise black women’s overlapping racial and gender identities.

Archival footage and in-depth interviews with former members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), SNCC’s Black Women’s Liberation Committee, the Black Panther Party, Third World Women’s Alliance, and the National Black Women’s Feminist Organisation reveal how Black women mobilised, fought for recognition, and raised awareness of how sexism and class issues affected women of colour within and outside The Black Power Movement and mainstream feminism.